Voter suppression
this post was submitted on 30 Oct 2024
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If people actually voted, they might vote for people the oligarchy doesn't like. Bet you didn't think about that, huh? Checkmate libruls!
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100% this
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Because they don't want the workers voting.
If you "can't go to the ballot because you need to work" you are a plebeian, and so they have a way of excluding you while technically not excluding you.
A lot of modern oligarchy is powered by these technicalities. Technically everyone has a "right to" participate in the system, but the whole apparatus is rigged in such a way that in material reality only the same nobility caste that has called the shots since the bronze fucking age gets to call the shots.
By law employers are required to allow their workers an opportunity to vote. The problem is other stuff like taking their kids to school and having to go to work right after and by the time you make it to the poll through rush hour traffic, the line is out the door and they shut it down and don’t let you vote even though you waited for an hour.
My roommate asked for time off to vote; her employer literally laughed at her. Now, there is legal recourse there, and she would have likely won and even gotten awarded a money judgment.
But she needed that job without interruption. This was in Canada, by the way.
This is why you don’t ask.
Also, you don’t really need a whole day. I’m also Canadian. Employers are required to allow you time to do it, not an entire day.
I would phrase the question like this: “I need to take time to go vote. Would you prefer I take the morning or afternoon off?”
If they so no to both, you say “you know it’s illegal not to allow me time off to vote, right?”
I’ve changed careers since the last election, but as a driver I’d just say “I’m going to swing by the polling place in my way to or back from wherever” and it was never a problem.
It really depends on how much you need that job to like
Not be homeless
And how hard it was to get the job in the first place.
You can make your legal rights count if you have options.
If you don't, you let your boss walk all over you and thank them for it.
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The law also doesn’t require employers to pay for that time, so many can’t afford to take the time off even if their employer is chill about it.
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The thing is
"The law says it has to happen" doesn't mean it happens.
And the weaker labour protections are in your country, the more bosses can walk all over their employees.
In the US, with their so-called "at-will" employment system, you can be fired at any time for any reason, and if you need the job to like, live, you won't even bring up your legal rights.
Mind you even on countries where polling happens exclusively on Sunday (like mine!) there are other subtle ways The Poors ^tm^ are kept from enfranchisement. "Voting happens on a work day" is just one of the ways it happens in one of our world's oligarchies.
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"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread."
Cuz America is a backwards ass country
A shit hole country
A third world country in a Prada belt.
Wait, you guys are getting President's Day off work??
Yeah, making election day a national holiday doesn't help those of us who don't get most holidays off.
Right. Congress would need to amend the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) to mandate that employers give national holidays off to employees for this to apply to everyone.
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This was my thought as well. Too many years of retail has left me with an instinctual hatred for holidays. Like how Labor Day is a holiday for the rich to "celebrate" the working poor who have to work that day.
Maybe OP works at an elementary school 40 years ago.
Though somehow there’s usually a mattress sale.
Or a bank. Are banks ever actually open?
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Sure, here you go: https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/7329
One of many such bills.
Take a look at the sponsors. I'll give you 1 guess at which party would vote it down, because it would hurt them in elections.
It's the same reason Puerto Rico will never be a state.
Because only people who are able to afford a day off are supposed to vote. That's also why republicans agitate against postal voting and why early vote ballot drop-offs are burning.
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Even if you made it a federal holiday, the wage slaves would still have to work.
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We should just have elections on presidents day.
In France elections are held on a Sunday so most people don't work, the others are allowed time off to vote of course
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Why is it election day anyway, why not election month. California and Oregon have vote by mail; every state should
Washington State too. You're right, the election isn't just a day anymore - I voted more than a week ago.
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The poor and desperate will vote less under the current conditions. It is all baked into the US cake. Wait until you realize that the US never passed the Equal Rights Amendment. Still waiting on those bastard laggard states to ratify it for nearly 50 years.
It gives employers the ability to suppress votes.
Because President's Day is for buying stuff. Clearly what we need is to allow stores to set up in polling places to get it to be a holiday. /s
I'll give you 3 guesses
- pancakes
- adamantium
- squirrels
(I'm bad at guessing)
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why the fuck is election day not on a Sunday like any normal fucking country?
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The ruling class wants you to celebrate them more than it wants you to have any influence in their decisions. It's frighteningly close to HR pizza party logic.
You know what?
Take the day, fam. Go vote, get some ice cream, and have a mental health day. You've earned it.
Voting makes me sick. That's why I call in sick. The fact my employer needs to give us 3 hours off to vote makes it that much more plausible; as no one would skyve off a half-day.
Be well. Don't be sick. Or do, if voting makes you sick too. I feel a cough coming on even talking about it. Maybe a migraine too. Definitely feel dizzy. Some kinda verklempt. Tawk amengst yeselves.
Because the oligarchy supports the leadership they helped to create .... not in the process of how that leadership was created.
Service workers work on both of those days, so the working class lose either way.
You kind of do but not a bank holiday. I believe us federal law mandates that your employer give you time to vote, but not the whole day off.
I agree it is dumb and backwards.
Nope. Unfortunately, like so many other things related to US elections, it's a patchwork that varies by state.
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